UKIP leader Nigel Farage says Sedgley-based MEP Bill Etheridge will stand aside as an MEP if he wins a seat in Westminster.

Mr Etheridge, who is a Dudley councillor as well as a euro-MP, is aiming to win a place in the House of Commons at next year’s general election by unseating Dudley North Labour MP Ian Austin.

Mr Farage says doing three jobs would be too much and the euro seat would be passed to another UKIP politician if his party wins in Dudley in 2015.

During a visit to Dudley on August 20, Mr Farage also threw his weight behind Mr Etheridge, who recently made headlines after telling a conference in Birmingham that Adolf Hitler had a magnetic personality.

Mr Farage said: “Anything said by anybody in UKIP gets exaggerated beyond all belief because the establishment will do everything they can to do us down.

“We have got a bit of a choice here, we could continue with three parties staffed with Oxbridge graduates all from privileged backgrounds, none of whom utter an opinion on anything for fear of causing offence.

"Or you can have what UKIP is trying to do, to bring real people into politics who are not career politicians, who come into this with conviction and passion and who, as part of the learning curve will make the odd mistake.

“I know which one I prefer and what Bill said, if any historian had said that, would not have been a news story because it would have been undeniably true.

“In the context in which Bill said it showed a level of inexperience of public office – that is all Bill is guilty of which, for somebody who has only just been elected as an MEP, is hardly surprising.

“To a large extent people like Bill are going to have to learn it for themselves, it’s about experience. I don’t want to change Bill, I don’t want to get rid of Bill’s desire to push the boundaries of debate.

“All I have got to do is knock a few of the edges off Bill and I think experience will do that, he is a first-class bloke.”

Comments (2)

Puts the whole daft media driven attempt to quash the revolution into perspective.

Bill Etheridge's speech on political oratory consisted of examples which included the oratorical styles and crowd stirring capabilities of Winston Churchill, Tony Blair, Martin Luther King, Ronald Reagen as well as Hitler. To completely distort a speech for a cheap headline is typical of a desperate media establishment who are desperately trying to halt the advance of UKIP's People's Army.

Bill Etheridge will take Dudley North with a landslide vote .... no doubt about it!

Ian Austin, Labour's lacklustre candidate, is holding onto Dudley North by the skin of his teeth, with just an itsy bitsy teeny weeny 649 majority!

Dr Matthew Goodwin, a leading expert in Ukip’s rise, has identified five Labour constituencies particularly vulnerable to Mr Farage’s insurgency and Dudley North is one of them. The others are Great Grimsby, Ashfield (Nottingham), Plymouth Moor View and Rotherham. Of course that doesn't let other former Labour strongholds off the hook. But Dudley North is potentially UKIP's for the taking, so great is the wave of local support in the wake of the party's spectacular win in the European Elections in May.

Good lad Nigel!
Puts the whole daft media driven attempt to quash the revolution into perspective.
Bill Etheridge's speech on political oratory consisted of examples which included the oratorical styles and crowd stirring capabilities of Winston Churchill, Tony Blair, Martin Luther King, Ronald Reagen as well as Hitler. To completely distort a speech for a cheap headline is typical of a desperate media establishment who are desperately trying to halt the advance of UKIP's People's Army.
Bill Etheridge will take Dudley North with a landslide vote .... no doubt about it!
Ian Austin, Labour's lacklustre candidate, is holding onto Dudley North by the skin of his teeth, with just an itsy bitsy teeny weeny 649 majority!
Dr Matthew Goodwin, a leading expert in Ukip’s rise, has identified five Labour constituencies particularly vulnerable to Mr Farage’s insurgency and Dudley North is one of them. The others are Great Grimsby, Ashfield (Nottingham), Plymouth Moor View and Rotherham. Of course that doesn't let other former Labour strongholds off the hook. But Dudley North is potentially UKIP's for the taking, so great is the wave of local support in the wake of the party's spectacular win in the European Elections in May.Lucky Lucretia